Venom of the Black Widow
by Dreamweaver123
Summary: Felicity felt her relationship with Ray Palmer was as strong as ever, but a new feminine threat has come to Starling City, unhinging that relationship. While black widows rarely kill their mates, this one has a taste for male blood, and her sights are set on Oliver Queen. This story occurs after the events of Suicidal Tendencies.
1. Chapter 1

**Queen**

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" Felicity's tone, laced with bitterness, haunted Oliver. The wrath was palpable, when he said that Ray would get himself killed, her insinuation that he would harbor such dark thoughts was a deeper wound into his battered soul. He hadn't thought that her opinion of him would get so low, and the venom at which she spoke those words forced him to retreat into himself even further.

Oliver knew he should not let words spoken in heartbreak affect him, distract him. Yet, in this one instance, he was too weary to fight it. It was exhausting enough to reconcile Palmer's and Smoak's relationship for them.

So when Felicity smiled, thanking him for being the good man she knew he was after he had told Ray that Felicity chose him, Oliver returned the smile concedingly, willing all the genuineness he could muster, but it wasn't much.

_Let it go, _the darkness beckoned to his grip on sanity. It took all his will power to not cave in to its allure.

**Felicity**

A week had passed since Ray and she had reconciled. Felicity felt like she was walking on clouds. Breakfast in bed, lunches on the lawn, and candlelit dinners had pretty much consumed their past 7 days.

Even Oliver seemed much more civil to Ray, and Felicity had to smile at that thought. Of course, no one could be upset at Ray for long.

"One French toast, topped with butter and syrup for the lady. Ooh, I feel my arteries clogging as I speak. But don't worry, got my nanotech to clear that clog should you need it," Ray said smugly as he slipped in bed next to Felicity.

"You know how to make a woman feel good, don't you," she laughed.

"Comes natural," Ray spoke smoothly. "Now don't hold up. Actually have work planned for today."

"Oh please, if you spend one day to accomplish something that takes me only five minutes, did we actually do the same amount of work or no?" she countered.

Ray looked thoughtful. "Good point. But today, it's not that kind of work. I have a meeting. A woman by the name of Kylamanne wants to meet me to see about opening a new division in Palmer Inc."

"Cool name," Felicity remarked absentmindedly as she feasted on the French toast. "What does she have in mind for the new division?"

Ray looked even more amused. "She thought we needed to invest in the chemical science division. Says her specialty is actually toxicology and chemistry. She wants me to hear her out. Says that her innovations will fundamentally change the inherent repressed state in men."

Felicity couldn't help but snort. "Men? Repressed? Try the exact opposite. Since when is the male gender repressed?"

"Well," Ray pondered, "I do think males act with their brains more than with their heart. Women tend to be more or less, driven by their emotions."

"Huh," Felicity snorted. "I agree that women are emotional wrecks sometimes. But I disagree that men act with their brains. Plus, there's such a thing called alcohol. Try it some time."

"Touche. Well, she comes with a lot of investment funds. You know, she has expressed some interest in buying the Queen mansion," Ray continued.

"She that wealthy?" Felicity looked up, intrigued. "Where does she get all her wealth?"

"Innovation," Ray laughed. "Come, let's go to work."

**Oliver**

"I'll be all right, you have a nice time with your family," Oliver smiled at Diggle. "And you two," he looked to Thea and Roy, "need to get a room."

He rolled his eyes at the trio. "It's only four in the afternoon, in case you haven't noticed."

"And you?" Thea asked Oliver, her worried expression seemed plastered to her face for the past week.

Oliver turned to see Malcolm Merlyn's expressionless eyes gazing at him. In a way, it was eerie how the man seemed to always be monitoring his every word, his every move. Oliver smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring one at Thea. "It's a nice afternoon for a jog. Got a little time to kill before dark."

Thea reached out and gripped his forearm. "You need to rest."

Oliver steadied her hand and then gently brushed it away. "Trust me, this is rest. Now stop killing your romantic mood. Go." This time, his smile must have soothed her. Diggle, Thea and Roy left.

Not a few minutes after the quiet departure, Merlyn laughed emptily and started an unsolicited conversation while Oliver was changing into his running clothes. "You're close to being broken," Merlyn stated flatly.

When Oliver remained quiet, Merlyn continued boldly. "Your team barely acknowledges you as their leader. You have the League of Assassins monitoring your moves. The love of your life is consummating a relationship with another man. The other love of your life's father is ready to destroy you. Your closest friends have priorities that do not include you. I'd say you have plenty of reason to assume Rha's Al Ghul's offer. There is nothing for you here in Starling City. You can only fight the sanity so much before insanity reigns in. There is only so much one person can take."

Oliver laughed emptily. "One would think that you were sent by Rhas himself to infiltrate us."

Merlyn's face contorted for the briefest of moments into what seemed like anger before resuming its usual calm façade. "Don't resist. It only makes the inevitable more painful. You are destined to take the demon's seat. To resist would be futile."

"Life lessons from the man who has no conscience. That sounds like a one way ticket to hell." With that, Oliver left the loft.

But Merlyn's words kept on surfacing from his subconsciousness, making it impossible for him to concentrate. As much as he disagreed with everything that Merlyn stood for, he could not refute the truth behind them. He just could not afford to acknowledge them, at least not without dooming himself to a pitiful fate. He ran faster, hoping that the physical exertion would drown out his despair.

So focused was he on not letting his situation get to his head that he hadn't realized he was running towards the Queen mansion until he was at its perimeter. Sweat trickled down his neck and back as he realized that it had been an hour since he left the loft.

He turned around, in the direction of Verdant, but at that moment, a limousine pulled into the road that led to the Queen mansion, essentially blocking him from leaving. He had not put much thought into the new tenants since he had lost the place, and so, was caught off guard by the audacity behind the action.

He decided to step around the vehicle when the door opened, and a woman, eyes and hair as black as coal but for the red streak in her hair, stepped out into his path, once more, blocking him from making an escape.

She smiled at him. It was an odd smile, one that was ancient and youthful at the same time. There was wonder in it, but also a hint of distrust as well. She nearly matched his height, but definitely lacking his build. Sinowy. That would describe her quite well. _Resilient, _Oliver added unconsciously.

"May I ask what you are doing at my mansion?" her voice was deep, yet still feminine.

It finally struck him that she saw him as an intruder. "Oh, no. Please, I did not mean to trespass. I was going jogging, and I wasn't paying attention."

The woman stepped forward, a little more bravely. "You are the Oliver Queen?" realization showing in her voice.

The way she spoke his name seemed to shame him. "Please, just call me Oliver," he willed a smile, though like most of his smiles of late, it did not include any other feature on his face but his lips.

She let out a slow sigh of relief, eyes examining him warily. "It's all right. You seem to have a lot of things on your mind, it appears. Sorry for the paranoia. It's just that I recently moved in and to find strangers roaming around the periphery of the mansion . . . well, it just spooks me out."

"Yes, well," Oliver spoke apologetically. "Sorry, I don't know what compelled me to come here. Honestly, it was a lack of attention. I'll get out of your way." He started to leave.

"Wait!" the woman spoke. Something in her voice commanded him to stop and turn to face her. "My name is Kylamanne. Kylamanne Leif. It is a pleasure to meet you, Oliver Queen." She held out her hand to him, and unlike her speech, the hands were firm as she took his hand in hers. "Will you not stay to have dinner? After all, you are a celebrity in Starling City, and the previous owner of this house. I would not feel right to not even invite you to dinner."

Oliver shook his head. "No need. I'm pretty sure that your time is very important to be wasting it on total strangers." For some odd reason, despite his words, he did not turn around to leave.

"Surely, the Oliver Queen is more gallant than that," she spoke firmly. Her smile now laced with a hint of flirtatiousness. "Besides, I am single, have no date. I wouldn't mind carrying on a conversation on my first day at this mansion with a nice-looking companion."

Alarms were somehow ringing in Oliver's head, but were drowned out by a vague feeling of comfort from her words. Unlike the rest of his crew, she genuinely wanted to spend some time with him. And how long has it been since he last felt wanted at a meal and not slapped with painful truths and stripped ego.

This time, the smile reached his eyes. "I kind of don't have really appropriate attire for a nice meal."

She laughed, and the sound was contagious. "Who says that attire is mandatory? Sorry, that was coming on strong," she spoke as Oliver's face shown with surprise. "You could shower and borrow maybe one of my butler's clothes. I'm pretty sure we can find you something less odious smelling. Come."

Somehow, Kylamanne's hand found its way around Oliver's hips. So odd was her overly-friendly gesture that he failed to notice that the newspaper she had placed on the backseat was in fact, not current. If he had simply craned his neck a little further, he would also have seen a photo half hidden under the newspaper, one of him standing in his bedroom, towel wrapped around his waist, all his most intimate scars exposed.

But Kylamanne's inquisitive hands, as well his overburdened mind, blurred his usually sharp perception. And he followed her through the doors of the place he had called home for most of his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Oliver**

It was an odd feeling, walking through the place he called home yet feeling a stranger none-the-less. There was an emptiness, even though most recent memories from the Queen mansion were depressing ones.

And to walk beside the charmingly charismatic Kylamanne made him feel more out of place. He was surprised to find out that she chose as her sleeping quarters not his parents' bedroom, but his own. It was at once both pleasantly surprising and creepy. There was not much of a footprint that he had left behind, so sterile had the room been the last few years of his life, but it had been his room.

"I'm sorry," Oliver spoke as he realized that Kylamanne had asked him a question and was waiting for an answer.

She laughed. "Are you always this absentminded? Or are you simply distracted?"

Oliver smiled embarrassingly. "Just reminiscing. You know how sentimental our male gender gets sometimes."

"Now you are just being sarcastic, Mr. Queen. Are you always this charming?" He thought with her tone it could have been a construed as jovial, but he was having a hard time reading her expression.

Oliver was too tired to respond. "What was it that you had asked me earlier?" he changed the subject. He would not mind a drama-free evening.

"I was asking if you would like to go ahead and shower now. Feel free to use your old bathroom, you know, for sentimental reasons." She winked.

"I can use the guestroom," Oliver offered.

"Didn't know you had reservations about anything, Mr. Queen." She looped her arms around his boldly. "But if you did, I wish it wasn't about something so trivial as this. I insist. We are here, just go in and clean up." Her body was warm and inviting, and for once, he gave in. It was, as she had stated, a trivial matter after all.

**Felicity**

Oliver was not answering his phone. And the texts he sent were vague tonight. There was none of his usual intensity when he was out scouting the city for illicit activity. Instead, they were quite, oh what's the word . . . domestic for him. Or was the word she was looking for 'mundane'.

_Cleaning up._

_Grabbing a bite._

_Checking something out._

_Will call soon._

While he had been unusually withdrawn the past week, this was taking it to a whole new level. It was unlike him to give so few details as to his whereabouts. It almost seemed to her that he was distracted.

And Malcolm Merlyn's interjections did not help. "Maybe life took a turn for the better for him and he found it cathartic to converse with people outside of Team Arrow."

Felicity rolled her eyes. It was one of the few nights she had decided to dedicate to Team Arrow instead of Ray, and she was kind of miffed by Oliver's tardiness. She couldn't help herself and turned on the GPS tracker on Oliver's cell phone.

To her surprise, the Queen mansion showed up on the screen.

"What's he doing at his old place?" she wondered out loud.

Diggle let out an amused noise. "Huh, didn't think him to be the sentimental type."

"There's nothing there left for him, is there?" Roy asked, concerned.

"Just wanted to remind you that spying on your boss does not promote team bonding," Merlyn commented.

"He's not our boss," the team voiced all at once.

"He's a partner," Felicity added.

"What kind of a partner?" Merlyn asked, feigning an interested now, to which Felicity ignored him.

"What are you getting at, Merlyn? Because you obviously have things in those black depths of your mind that you want to spill out," Thea looked directly at him.

"I'm just saying that Oliver may feel a little out of the loop lately, seeing as everyone has their own agenda which mostly does not involve him. I would cut him a little slack. You can't complain about him being himself, deprive him of his leadership in this enterprise, which mind you he started, exclude him from the more important aspects of your lives, and then put him on a leash. Just seems wrong."

"Is it just my sensitivity or are we being judged by a world class douche bag," Thea spat angrily.

Merlyn sighed. "Just telling it like I see it."

"You can keep your vile opinions to yourself," Roy closed the subject.

Suddenly, Felicity remembered something Ray had mentioned. _Kylamanne had expressed interest in residing in the Queen mansion, had she not? _Felicity had seen, _well actually searched for, but that was beside the point, _photos of Kylamanne earlier. _Was it curiosity for an outside woman investing in one of Starling City's most successful enterprises? _Regardless, the woman actually reminded her of her more youthful days, when she fashioned her goth look. Except in this case, Kylamanne owned the look.

A jab of unease ran through her.

"What is it, Felicity?" Diggle noticed.

"A new potential business partner of Ray's has just moved into that house," Felicity spoke.

"And?" Diggle urged.

"She just creeps me out," she finished weakly.

"She?" Roy raised an eyebrow, sympathetically.

Merlyn rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're jealous. And I mean Oliver, not Ray."

"What? No," Felicity shot back.

"Is being a constant annoyance part of your role here? Because if that is the case, you are welcome to leave," Thea demanded.

**Kylamanne**

Kylamanne lay the worn male denim jeans down on the bed casually as she attuned her ears to the bathroom adjoining her room. She smiled triumphantly, still reeling from her exceptionally good fortune. She expected, anticipated, much more difficulty in tracking down Oliver Queen once she got to Starling City. Not that he was that reclusive, but he no longer owned Queen enterprises or any of its extensions.

In actuality, it was a feat to generate this façade of a wealthy entrepreneur to infiltrate the previous Queens Consolidated, especially when she had not a single penny in her pocket nearly three years ago . . . when Oliver Queen had miraculously reappeared into civilization.

And what a story it was. She lived nowhere near Starling City. And yet, what should not have been such a sensational story in her town became THE talk of her town, thousands of leagues away. She did not know what it was about the story that seemed to resonate on such a primal level. It could not have been his fascinating personality, almost bipolar in nature, at times reckless like a cornered cat, and yet on other occasions, showing such restraint as to shame the royal family.

Was the fascination with him the fact that even though he never truly professes anything to the public, his personal life is utterly exposed, magnified even, for the public to enjoy? And was his a story of heroic survival or that of a fall from grace?

So, Kylamanne began to delve into this research project that was Oliver Queen. He, after all, was the perfect specimen, the epitome of what she despised most about the opposite gender—disgustingly wealthy, excessively privileged, completely irresponsible, and blessed with an impossibly alluring shell to cover up his rotten core. She would unravel him, like unraveling a sweater with a loose thread.

And once done, she would use him as he was meant to be used: no more than an empty, albeit pretty, shell whose only purpose would be for mere physical satisfaction. But she will not fall for him. She would not give him that satisfaction. Objects this addictive should not have the opportunity to corrupt.

She stole a glance in the direction of the bathroom. It was a stroke of luck, really. She had installed the video camera in there more out of paranoia than anything else, mostly to keep tabs on her pions. But it was turning out to give her much better returns. She would have quite a bit of footage to sift through tonight. She had always been fascinated by his scars, but the few photos she was able to retrieve had not enough details to determine how he got them. No doubt, he commanded a violent past, and she wondered how many died in their attempts to overtake him, only to leave a meager scar as evidence of their futile efforts.

Which made her goal at hand all the more enticing.


End file.
